Around 1 AM Eastern Standard Time today, North Korea decided to carry out its sixth and most powerful nuclear test to date in an extraordinary show of defiance against US President Donald Trump.

In an official statement Kim Jong-un, also known as “Fat Boy” is saying he ordered, and detonated, a hydrogen bomb that could be mounted on an intercontinental ballistic missile.

The test, which the North Korea hailed as being a “complete success,” was the first to clearly surpass the destructive power of the bombs dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki which put an end to World War II.

North Korea confirmed the test of a powerful hydrogen bomb that can be loaded on to an intercontinental ballistic missile in a move that is expected to increase pressure on President Donald Trump to defuse the growing nuclear crisis on the Korean peninsula.

The announcement was carried on state TV, and they claimed this was their sixth test since 2006.

They went on to hail the test as being a “complete success” which involved a “two-stage thermonuclear weapon” with “unprecedented” strength and power of destruction. If this is indeed true, as it seems to be by the 6.3 earthquake which was felt around the same time as the test happened, then the world is indeed in great danger.

Trump Tweeted out his response:

North Korea has conducted a major Nuclear Test. Their words and actions continue to be very hostile and dangerous to the United States…..

Donald Trump has lashed out after North Korea’s latest nuclear weapons test, declaring the nation’s actions as “hostile and dangerous” to the US and leaving open the possibility of a military response against Pyongyang.

North Korea on Sunday said it had tested a hydrogen bomb capable of being mounted on a ballistic missile that was a “perfect success”. The test, estimated to have been about 10 times more powerful than previous detonations, triggered a magnitude 6.3 earthquake.

After meeting with the president on Sunday, Jim Mattis, the defence secretary, appeared outside the White House to warn North Korea that any threat to the US or its allies would be met with a “massive military response”.

North Korea’s move provoked strong reaction from the Chinese and Russian presidents on Sunday, who were speaking on the sidelines of a Brics summit in China. Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin agreed to “appropriately deal with” the latest nuclear test, while Mr Xi went on to tell the summit that the group was “committed to upholding global peace and contributing to the international security order”.

In Europe, German chancellor Angela Merkel said that North Korea’s provocations had “reached a new dimension”.

The move by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is the latest show of defiance to the international community, particularly the US, amid rising concerns that Pyongyang is getting closer to being able to hit the US with an intercontinental ballistic missile.

Last month, Mr Trump warned of “fire and fury” if Pyongyang continued to threaten the US after North Korea test-fired two long-range missiles in July. When asked by a reporter on Sunday if the US would attack North Korea, the US president said: “We’ll see.”

Steven Mnuchin, Treasury secretary, said the US would continue to apply economic pressure by putting together a package of new sanctions that would potentially cut off all global trade with Pyongyang.

China has the option of cutting off North Korea’s oil supply but has been loathe to do so because of fears that it would trigger a refugee crisis.

Mr Trump on Sunday tweeted: “North Korea is a rogue nation which has become a great threat and embarrassment to China, which is trying to help but with little success.”

North Korea’s state news agency KCNA early on Sunday posted pictures of Mr Kim inspecting what it claimed was a hydrogen bomb and reported that he had watched it being loaded on to an intercontinental ballistic missile.

The tremor was stronger than those created by the regime’s five previous tests. South Korea’s parliamentary defence committee estimated that the device had a yield of up to 100 kilotons.

South Korea condemned the test and put its nuclear crisis team into operation while Japan and China said they were monitoring radiation levels.

President Moon Jae-in called for diplomatic pressure to force North Korea to abandon its nuclear programme. The president also called for a review of US and South Korean military planning to counter the nuclear threat, Kyodo reported.

But Mr Trump criticised Seoul’s response, tweeting that South Korea’s “talk of appeasement with North Korea will not work, they only understand one thing”.

In his brief appearance Mr Mattis said the commitments between the US and its allies Japan and North Korea were ironclad. “Any threat to the United States or its territories including Guam, or our allies, will be met with a massive military response — a response both effective and overwhelming,” he told reporters. The US, he added, was not looking to the total annihilation of North Korea even if it had many options to do so.

Bong Young-shik, an authority on North Korea at Seoul’s Yonsei University, said earlier that the regime now believed the White House’s rhetoric was shallow.

“Kim Jong Un now understands that Washington does not have the ability to crank up its maximum pressure strategy any further,” he said. “He understands Washington does not realistically have a military option. The only option is for Washington to recognise North Korea as a nuclear state and hope to contain it like with the Soviet Union.”

It remains unclear whether Pyongyang has indeed mastered the technology enabling it to mount a miniaturised nuclear warhead on to an ICBM.

“We don’t know if this thing is full of styrofoam,” Melissa Hanham, a defence expert at the Middlebury Institute for International Studies in California, said on Twitter of the pictures released by North Korea’s news agency.

Nevertheless, Troy Stangarone, senior director at the Korea Economics Institute, said early indications showed that “this test was a significant step forward for North Korea with a much more powerful blast than prior tests.

Coupled with the ICBM tests and other technological advances that the North Koreans have made recently, this test continues a worrisome trend of escalation.”

Hours before the test, Mr Trump and Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe agreed in a telephone call to put more pressure on Pyongyang. The two leaders stressed the importance of co-ordination between Washington, Tokyo and Seoul to cope with North Korea’s growing threats.

Cheong Seong-chang, an analyst at the Sejong Institute, said that South Korea needed to work with its allies to increase pressure on China to stop oil imports to North Korea. Many experts believe that an oil embargo could choke off the Kim regime quickly.

The US has recently started imposing sanctions on Chinese companies linked to North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme. But some experts doubt that China would ever put sufficient pressure on North Korea because of Beijing’s concerns over regime collapse on its border.

After decades of bowing down to pressure and temper tantrums from North Korea, we are now at a point where we have to deal with this Fat Boy as a nuclear power. This proves beyond any doubt that the policies of former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Hussein Obama, and to an extent George W. Bush, weren’t the correct ones. It never works out when the US bows to a rogue force, it only buys us time, and in this case, it bought North Korea enough time to become a nuclear power. And a nuclear North Korea will not be tolerated by President Trump. My God Help us and guide our new President!

Please share if you support using military force to take out the North Korean threat….

Al ran for the California State Assembly in his home district in 2010 and garnered more votes than any other Republican since 1984. He’s worked on multiple political campaigns and was communications director for the Ron Nehring for California Lt. Governor campaign during the primaries in 2014. He has also held multiple positions within his local Republican Central Committee including Secretary, and Vice President of his local California Republican Assembly chapter. While also being an ongoing delegate to the California Republican Party for almost a decade.

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